


To be a hero

by insertsmth



Category: To The Moon (Video Game), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Quirks (My Hero Academia), Angst, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Cinnamon Roll Midoriya Izuku, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Married Life, That crossover no one wanted, bakudeku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 17:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15668088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insertsmth/pseuds/insertsmth
Summary: Another day on the job for Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts. Today's patient, Bakugou Katsuki, is like any other to them.Their mission: to fulfill his dying wish, if only in his mind.-----------------------------------------------------An Alternate Universe where there are no quirks, and where, despite everything, they kept finding each other and lived a fulfilling and happy life as seen through the eyes of Eva Rosalene and Neil Watts.





	To be a hero

Their arrival to the patient’s house was, as per usual, chaotic. Dr. Eva Rosalene had already lost count of how many squirrels they’d run over and how many company cars they’d wrecked since she started working with Dr. Neil Watts. But nevertheless, they had reached their destination right on time.

As she left the car, Dr. Rosalene sighed in exasperation. “We ran over a poor squirrel, again.”

Dr. Watts, apparently, couldn’t have cared less. “So, let’s just get the equipment and go find the old geezer’s house so we can get started. Hope they’ve got food, I’m starving.” Inevitably, Dr. Rosalene sighed again and looked at the address they’d been given at SigCorp to make sure they were at the right place. 

The house was on the edges of Musutafu, and looked quite ordinary save for the hedges that surrounded it. It had been a long drive from Tokyo. Both doctors were as tired as could be, with heavy bags under their eyes and jet-lag making Dr. Watts even more sarcastic than usual. Needless to say, the drive had felt like the longest journey for Dr. Rosalene. As they heaved the equipment from the car and approached the entrance, she observed the flower bushes that surrounded the pathway, identifying chrysantemums, liriums, dalias, and roses, along with other assorted plants she didn't recognize. Once almost to the door, she ran through whatever information she could remember about their patient. 

Bakugou Katsuki. A man approaching his 90s, he had lived an apparently fulfilling life until his husband died from an unspecified illness. From that point on, his health had declined and well, here they were. It was not uncommon for their services to be called in under these circumstances, for old men and women who lose their life-long partners usually follow soon after from a broken heart. Her thoughts were interrupted by Neil’s complaining.

“You’d think such a huge house would have a working doorbell, what’s with old geezers these days? And what’s the deal with all the weird hedges. They do get crazier every day.” Having said this, Neil began to pound on the door hoping someone would open it soon. His arms were already feeling numb from carrying the mini-asteroid looking machine. He turned to Eva and made a face. “You know what, you should be the one carrying this. Gender equality and all that you know.”

“…” Eva facepalmed. She definitely didn’t get paid enough. “You’ll be fine. Let me do the knocking.” She began knocking and was relieved when they finally heard a woman’s voice. “Coming!” It was followed by a child’s giggles and the sound of running feet, followed by hurried footsteps and one or two loud crashes. Both Eva and Neil looked at each other, deadpan, and sweatdropped. This sounded like it would be a handful. 

Finally, the door opened to reveal a little boy who couldn’t be older than 8. A mop of green hair wildly stood out from his head, and both Eva and Neil were bewildered by the torrent of excited questions that left the boy's mouth once he saw the company logo in their coats. “Hi! Are you here to grant grandpa’s wish? Are you from Sigmund? Is that the machine you use to enter people’s heads? Oh my god your job is just so amazing and wow you look so cool in the lab coats the internet was right this is so awesome!” The kid continued his rambling and before either of them could get a word in the woman finally arrived at the door, looking very flustered. “Oh my god stop scaring them, what have we said about this?! You said you’d be polite. Where did I go wrong with you…” The two started bickering and Neil concluded that they must be mother and child, the two of them sharing their mop-like hair, freckles and face structure. The flustered mumbling that came from the two of them was also a dead giveaway. It must run in the family, then. They had no idea how much time had passed since the boy barreled through the door, but Neil had had enough. So, he coughed. 

“So, not to interrupt or anything, but can we at least go through the door? I don’t know about Dr. Rosalene, but I really need my arms to work.” Eva glared at Neil, to no effect whatsoever. The nerve! Sure, they’d probably been at the entrance for over five minutes, and it was the middle of summer, but she would be sure to call him out on it. Later though. The woman had promptly begun apologizing and forcibly made the boy bow with her via a slap to the head (“Mom that hurt!”) before introducing herself and sending the boy off.

“Keiichi stop! Now go upstairs and tell the physician the technicians from Sigmund are here. Up you go!” The boy took off at a sprint. “And no running in the house young man! It’s a miracle you didn’t break something just now!” Keiichi stopped running immediately, although not without mumbling some sort of complaint about crazy old hags and other unintelligible things. The whole scenario made Eva and Neil feel out of place, like intruders. While this was usually the case, it was rare for patient’s families to be this… open… when they were there. “I am so, so sorry for making you wait, we’ve been meaning to fix the doorbell but with everything that’s happened lately I’ve just been unable to keep up…” She stopped, apparently realized she was beginning to mumble again, sighed and took a deep breath. She fixed a polite smile on her face and straightened her apron as she finally introduced herself. “My name is Bakugou Inko, I’m Katsuki’s daughter. It is so nice to meet you, and I offer my sincerest apologies for making you wait outside so long. Can I offer you a drink? You look really tired.”

Eva looked at her watch, and interrupted Neil before he could ask for anything. They really had wasted a lot of time, and if the report they had received before coming was right, then they had no time to waste. Ever the level-headed one, Eva went straight to the point. “Don’t worry, we’re alright Mrs. Bakugou.” Eva noticed Bakugou Inko visibly blanched at being addressed so formally. Even so, she continued as if she’d seen nothing. They had no time. “I’m Dr. Eva Rosalene, and this is my partner, Dr. Neil Watts. I was wondering if you could direct us to Mr. Bakugou’s room to prepare? Time is very important for something as delicate as this.”

Neil, still carrying the machine, tried to adjust his glasses but failed. He groaned. “Yeah, we don’t want to be stuck in a dying geezer’s mindscape again. It’s happened way too many times now, it’s kinda getting on my nerves.” Eva fought really, really hard not to facepalm in front of Inko, settling with a menacing stare directed at Neil. “I mean, can’t they just wait until we’re out for once?”

Inko chuckled, showcasing a few laughter lines on her otherwise youthful face. “Oh my, you make me sound so old! You can call me Inko.” Inko ignored Neil’s remark and attitude with an ease that surprised Eva. “And you can call my father Katsuki, I know it might feel awkward using our first names, but it simply helps avoid confusion in the house. Now, let me take you to Katsuki’s room so you can set up.” Inko turned around and then remembered an important detail. “Please, do leave your shoes at the entrance. You know how it is.”

After leaving their shoes (Neil grumbling all the way through the process and then some), Inko finally led them through the house. Eva tried to -and failed- to find anything that could help them fulfill their job. In the entrance, she could see five other pairs of shoes left behind. Odd. She’d keep it in mind, just in case. As they walked through the foyer, Eva tried to look for family photos, or anything, really, that looked like it could possibly be a memento. 

Apparently, Neil was doing the same thing, and spoke up while they were climbing the stairs. “Wow, what’s with that poster?” Eva turned to look. In her search for family pictures she’d neglected an admittedly large poster hanging at the top of the stairs. In it, she could see a stylized blond Golden Age superhero she couldn’t recognize. Eva was never a big fan of superheroes, but apparently their patients were. 

“That’s All Might! He’s just like, the #1 Hero!” Keiichi’s voice rang through the stairs, and possibly the whole house given how loud he’d said it. When they weren’t looking, (just how fast was he? thought Eva) he’d approached the upper railing, stood with his legs wide apart and a fist held high over his head and simply screamed. “Plus Ultra!” This prompted another scene of Inko scolding her son, and earned another awkward stare shared between Neil and Eva. 

Inko however, opted to send them ahead this time. As she practically manhandled her son, she said “I really, really don’t know where I went wrong with him. Just go to the room at the end of the corridor, the door on the right. The doctor’s waiting for you. I’ll be right there in a second…”

Neil and Eva didn’t need to be told twice, and practically ran away from her. The difference between polite, demure Inko and an angry scolding Inko was scary enough it made them pity the poor kid. When they were about to enter the room Neil spoke up. “So, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree right?”

Eva was confused at just why he’d chosen this exact moment to say that. “And you say that because…?”

Neil simply scoffed. “Well, if Inko’s the daughter, then she’s gotta be a combination of her parents right?” Oh, now she understood. 

She settled for the optimistic option. “Let’s just hope we’re dealing with the wish and memories of the sensible one here, and not the one she got her temper from. That feels like it would be a nightmare.” At that moment they entered the room, greeted the physician and started setting up.

The room was rather large, with walls painted a light beige to make the several posters hanging from it stand out. Most of it were variations of the poster they'd seen at the top of the stairs, showcasing the same blond hero through different eras and action poses. In the middle of the room, a queen size bed was surrounded by monitors and what Eva assumed at first glance to be family pictures.

“I can feel my arms again! Freedom!” Eva and the doctor facepalmed. Neil simply ignored them and minded his own business. “I’ll just set everything up and tell you when we’re ready to go, Eva. You wanna look around the room in case there’s anything useful?” Eva nodded and asked the doctor how Mr. Baku-, no, Katsuki, was doing and his prognosis. 

The doctor sighed. “Well, I’d say you have three days, tops. Let’s hope it’s enough and that he doesn’t start slipping all of a sudden.” The frown he’d sported since they entered the room deepened. “It’s a real possibility, given how fast his health declined in the last few months… he was the picture of perfect health until Izuku passed away. A freaky flu got him, can you imagine? I was his attending physician too. He seemed to be recovering but suddenly got worse and well, the rest you know. That’s why you’re here, anyway.” He smiled a bit at the memory of Izuku -Eva seared the name into her memory, he would definitely come up sometime-, and then kept on talking. “I’m not quite sure why Katsuki would hire you, though. As far as I know, he lived well-off his entire life, no obvious regrets from what I know… I actually expected it from Izuku, but apparently he had nothing set up… maybe it was because of how sudden it was. Well, I can never know now.” His smile grew, and his face brightened as he said the following, “I don’t know what Katsuki’s wish is, but what I can tell you is that as long as the two were together, they were really happy. Sure, they were like night and day in terms of temperament, but they were also so similar… so whatever his wish is, I hope it involves Izuku in some way.” His face turned serious again. “But that’s enough about how I feel about the whole thing. You should look around the room a bit, see if there’s anything that can help you.”

Eva nodded in thanks, and immediately felt relieved as the doctor turned towards the heart monitor once again. She took stock of what she’d learned. One, apparently the doctor had been close to the couple. Two, Izuku -the husband- had died suddenly and had not hired Sigmund. This wasn’t odd, most people didn’t have anything they’d like to change, but the doctor had been clear about how he thought that if one of the two would hire Sigmund, it would have been him. Something told Eva this would come in handy. Three, the doctor didn’t know this, but Eva could connect the dots easily. The request for the services came in two or three months ago, meaning Katsuki made the contract after his husband’s death. The wish that was written down in the contract still left her puzzled, though.

To be a hero.

But then again, she reasoned, they’d just arrived, they’d barely seen anything other than the entrance, the stairs and this room. She looked at some pictures, but she couldn’t see anything too telling. Family portraits, mostly. In one of them she saw two men sitting in the middle of a crowd that included Inko and what could only be a younger Keiichi sitting in her lap. She sat next to an older man that shared her mop of green hair and freckles who had laughter lines running all throughout his face and smiled brightly at the camera. The resemblance was obvious, this was definitely Izuku. Sitting cross-legged at his side was who she could only assume was Katsuki. While he was smiling too, it was far more subdued and his smile paled at the brightness the smiles of the green mops gave off. Maybe shy with cameras, but definitely not the picture of an unhappy man. For some strange reason, she found it hard to believe that the man in the bed and the one in the picture were one and the same, but illness did change people drastically, and the frail figure confined to the bed no longer held that strong air about him. 

Sure, he apparently still kept his ashen blond hair, and from what she could see in the picture, it remained untidy and was spiking all over the pillow where his head now rested. She approached the bed with the intent to take a closer look at the pictures surrounding it, but wound up focusing on the wrinkles that stood out in his brow. Based on how deep they were and the area they where focused in, he must have scowled a lot or spent his days worried over something. This seemed relevant in some way.

Neil’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Hey Eva, whenever you’re ready. Let’s get this over with.”

With a sigh, Eva approached the chair Neil had set up for her. The machine Neil had complained so much about carrying was now completely set up, with its holographic panels staring back at Neil and its heavy body unfolded underneath. It occupied the whole table Inko had probably set up with it in mind at the bottom of the bed.

Well, the job was to fulfill the wish however they saw fit. She sincerely hoped it would be an easy job, but something in her gut told her it was going to be the exact opposite. Rather than dwell on it, she turned to Neil. “Well, here goes nothing.” As she prepared her head-set, she wondered where Inko could be, but decided they’d check in with her later, once they needed help to move through the memories or found something that didn’t add up. She settled down on her seat. “Neil, I’m ready.”

Neil simply nodded and with the push of several buttons, the two entered the mindscape not knowing what awaited them.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first (official, mind) foray into writing fanfiction and for some reason I felt I needed a story about these two where there were no life or death dramas, just a simple love story. Well, as simple as can be given it was inspired by my love for To The Moon and Finding Paradise. 
> 
> In any case, I hope you enjoy this and soon enough I'll upload Act 1. Also, please keep in mind, I am not a native english speaker and would be really thankful if any spelling and or grammar mistakes were pointed out. I am completely open to suggestions and tips to make my writing better, so feel completely free to comment on that, too. Thanks for reading!


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